


only the sun

by holywaters



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Rey centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25283497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holywaters/pseuds/holywaters
Summary: the force has a mouth, though its shape and its form are incomprehensible to a creature’s eyes, no matter how in tune with it one may be. the force has a mouth, yes, and teeth, but the force has no stomach, no bowels, no complex digestive system, which is to say that once the force eats you, you simply become. the act of becoming is a violent one, not to shred one reality but to reshape it.or: this is what it feels to be rey skywalker.
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	only the sun

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from shauna barbosa's poem "gps".
> 
> more characters will be added on the upcoming chapters.

In the threshold of the universe, there exists a thread. Or, for the human eye, it is better to be described as a thread, as such description gives an image to the unimaginable, and within its imagery lies the beginning of comprehending the incomprehensible. But that is hardly the point, the point is that in the threshold of the universe, there exists a thread, and this thread binds the universe together, each and every soul, connects and sews them as one. This thread, invisible and eternal, spreads throughout, shifting and changing and willing, as it pleases. Some may even dare to call it the Force. 

If you are lucky, and most people are, the Force will leave you alone. Your body and soul will be one of its many devouts, your breathing will feed it and it will feed you, but that will be all that is. If you are lucky, you will be a star within a constellation, a name within a march, a heart within the lungs and brains and kidneys of the galaxy. 

If you are not, the Force will wrap its hands around your throat, open its mouth and eat you whole. 

This is what it feels to be Rey Skywalker. 

*******

Jakku is a wasteland. She finds the creature somewhere among an endless sea of sand-orange dust, in the midst of the wrecks of wars past, its body, small and frail, beating and batterring in agonizing shudders, the last whimper of life breathing through its little lungs. 

Rey is ten years old, and though her instincts may tell her to turn around, the selfishness of a scavenger already becoming one with her after four years, her heart tells her to come closer, and the stubborn nature of her very existence does not allow her to do anything other than kneel next to the dying ripper-raptor. 

The creatures haunted her, once, plaguing her nightmares with its long wings and venomous tongue, its scales and yellow, yellow eyes. She once dreamt they ate her up, taking apart her flesh bit by bit, chunk by chunk, until all that was left was the carcass of her, and the bones, and still they were not settled, hungry and hungrier still. Here, now, with a scarlet liquid dripping on its wings, and shallow, whisper-like whimpers, it looks as inoffensive as the worms she picked up on the way, a bug or two to feed a starving stomach. 

With the sand against her ankles, all caution lost to compassion, she watches the creature, its eyes bulging out of its skull, the flickering of life as it leaves the body in wails and shudders. Rey wants to close her eyes and leave. Rey finds that she can not look away, and even as her mind orders, again and again and again, for her knees to straighten, and her legs to move, her mind to forget, her hands instead stretch out, and, softly, calmly, to touch the ripper-raptor’s skin. 

The Force, and Rey does not yet know it as such, is a cruel, untamable, unpredictable creature. The Force, and Rey will not know it as such for many years to come, curls around her hands, slips into her bloodstream through her fingernails until all that she knows is the feeling of unabashed, uncontrollable fear. She closes her hands into a fist, feeling all air leave her lungs, feathers and fur falling into her palms as the creature’s beak moves to strike her, once, twice, until it gives up out of exhaustion, its eyes terror matching hers. 

She breathes, and it hurts, her lungs burning and blood rising up to her throat, but there is nothing there. This pain is not her own, this blood is not her own, this panic is not her own, either. Her fingers stretch out, slowly, and her breathing slows, and it hurts. 

It hurts as tears gather up in her eyes, hurts as they fall into the sand of Jakku (what a stupid, silly waste of water), it hurts and she stays there, for what feels like hours but is only a half one, and the eyes of the ripper-raptor closes, life ending in blissful numbness. 

She wipes the blood off on her pants and digs a hole in the ground, swearing never to return again. 

———

Jakku is hopeless. Orange stretches as far as the eye can see, and the heat leaves imprints on its subjects skin, all servants of the god-sun. Here, on this wasteland of sand, metal and junk, there is little talk of the Force. Here, you pray only for food, and water, and for the sun not to burn skin to flesh to bone. Here, the Force is nothing but a myth, and the jedi are long gone, and hope does not prosper, and love does not grow. Jakku is hopeless. 

Rey’s routine remains the same, an unstoppable force of nature: she wakes up, eats the rests of the food conquered on the day before, and scavenges. She spends hours doing so, climbing upwards, sliding through the seemingly impossibly tight holes in the star destroyer, finding the pieces, cleaning the pieces, selling the pieces. The only sound that would grace her ears would be of the wind, at times the sound of someone else’s footsteps — which, in turn, would require her utmost attention (you can never trust a scavenger) — , but mostly only the sound of her own breathing, and her heartbeat, steady and constant and entirely her own. This time, however, though her steps are the same, she leaves a different imprint on the sand: the footsteps of a girl, and the rolling of an orange and white bee bee unit. 

It’s not so silent anymore, not today. Today, the air fills with chippers in binary, and, much to Rey’s own surprise, the eagerness of her own voice, answering questions away. It would be easy for her to attribute the shift in the air as this alone — she is in the presence of another being, interested in her for her and not for the parts she may have, posing no threat to her —, but she knows better. There is a warmth somewhere in Jakku, somewhere along the sand, and it can not be attributed to the sun. It stretches itself all the way to her, wrapping itself around the edges of the air. Rey ignores it — it is better this way, than to create false hope in the dead soil of Jakku.

Ever so cautious, she looks at the men of Unkar Plutt, at their scheming, at the side glances. He is not one to be denied anything, much less a o chance of profit, and his pride is bruised at the harshness of her words. Rey does not care. BB-8’s company was the closest thing she has had to a friend ever since she was left in this planet, and she is not ready to let that go yet, not even for one hundred portions. _ Foolish _ , she thinks, to let her heart take charge.  _ Foolish, yes, but kind, too _ , says a voice somewhere deep within her. 

As the day passes, hour by hour by hour, the warmth grows warmer, its presence stronger, almost overwhelming — Rey has never felt anything like this before, this strength. She thinks, perhaps, she has dreamed of it. She thinks, perhaps, she is dehydrated. She looks around, at the faces of those around her, and there is nothing, and all she realizes is that, yes, she is the only person who feels it. 

It is almost —  _ almost  _ — too late. They grab her from behind, keeping her in place as they throw a net around BB-8, earning beeps of dissatisfaction from the droid.  _ Plutt’s men _ , she knows. It is a good thing they are as brute as they are stupid, Rey thinks, as her mouth moves to the arm placed near her neck. Her teeth dig into skin, and as the man yells in pain, Rey’s feet reach his crotch. He falls to the ground, and she takes the opportunity to grab her staff back, and moves on to the next target, all while BB-8 watches.

On the second man, she is quicker: before he can fully react, her staff meets his jaw, and it takes no more than a two blows to each side of his spine for him to fall to the ground. She finds satisfaction in the image of their bodies, still breathing, on the ground, an odd sort of retribution to the harm they intended to cause her.  _ Good _ , she thinks,  _ pay _ . BB-8, whose beeps cheered her throughout the ordeal, has now started to beep furiously, again and again and again, at the net around him and something  _ else _ , something —  _ (warm, it’s so warm, it’s so close). _

“What’s that, BB-8?” She asks, adrenaline still flowing through her, half wishing more of Plutt’s men were lurking about, pent up desire for reckoning boiling under her skin — he has hurt them for so long, if only she could —. “A  _ thief _ ?” 

Rey barely registers an answer before she is running in the direction of the assailant, no thought to question the droid on its accusations — what reason does a droid have to lie for, anyway? Here, with the anticipation of a fight in her bloodstream, she does not realize what her instincts are telling her:  _ you are running towards the warmth.  _

She does not realize it as she kicks him to the ground, staff threateningly pointed at his face. She does not realize it as he battles the accusations of theft —  _ I broke him out of the first order, he didn’t make it.  _ She barely registers BB-8’s grief at the loss of his master, mind now focused on the man in front of her, mind now focused on his recent accomplishments. The first hint that there is something about him,  _ something _ that she can not quite pinpoint comes next to his answer to her question. 

“Are you with the Resistance?” Rey asks, mildly aware of the eagerness that lingers on her every syllable. A  _ Resistance _ fighter! In  _ Jakku _ !

“Yes,” he answers, and she is too bewildered to question the speed in which the answer came. “I am with the Resistance.” 

Rey still does not realize it as they run through the sands of Jakku, escaping from the troopers of the First Order and their bombs. She does not realize it as he grabs her hand, and she grabs his, and they run, again, towards a junk of a ship, and away. She does not realize, until they are in hyperspace, circling each other, buzzing with excitement over what they have just accomplished  _ together _ , at this wonderful thing they have just shared, so unlike the mundane life she led all these years.

Here is when she realizes: she looks at him, after all has calmed down, pressing her lips together. She is so far from Jakku and yet the warmth is still here, vibrant and strong, humming from where he stands, circling them, binding all of the things inside this ship together — her, and him, and the droid, too. She has never felt anything like that before — it radiates, shining from within him and towards her. He reminds her of the glow of the two moons, so much kinder than the harshness of the sun. 

“I don’t know your name.” Rey says. 

“FN-2– Finn. My name is Finn.” In his eyes, Rey sees hope. 

———

First, there is darkness. She remembers too much or nothing at all, the green and smell of the forest now ripped from underneath her, her hands grasping for emptiness. In the darkness, she realizes she can not move: her body weights one hundred pounds, and her head a thousand times heavier, and Rey has lost all sense of time and space. She tries to breathe, but finds that her lungs feel as though filled with sand, grains glued against the wall of flesh and if she could, she’d cry. 

After the darkness, comes the smell. 

Rey has only felt smelled a smell once in her life, but knows she’d never forget it: on the eastmost of Jakku, nearest to the landing and further from the greedy hands of Unkar Plutt, somewhere within the sand and the sun, there was a market. 

The first time she came across it was after having all of the portions she had acquired that day —  _ five whole portions! —  _ stolen from her. It took very little: for a moment, she allowed excitement to cloud her judgment, and three scavengers cornered her, their greedy hands taking all that they could, leaving her bruised, beaten and bleeding. 

With eyes drowning with the tears she was not allowed to cry, she ran, and ran, and ran, until the sound of voices led her to a village, and a market. The fruit she stole — or what she assumed was a fruit — was green, shaped like a claw, and when she bit into it the sweetness dripped into her mouth and made her teeth ache. 

After that, she made it a habit to go into the village as often as possible, and taste all of the different shaped foods, and the colors that she could not name and did not care to — green, and pink, and purple, and blue, and something else she did not care about. 

The last time she visited the market on the eastmost of Jakku, she was greeted not with chatter but with screams, or the aftermath of it. The sound did not come from the village, but from within her, and the smell of sickly sweet fruits was no more, replaced by the tart and unforgiving scent of death. Smoke burned high and grey, the red of fire now barely a spark, all cloth and wood turned into ash.

Here, in the darkness, she smells what remains of burning. 

The smell, sharp and acidic and rotten ash, raises bile to her throat, burning its way to her lungs, and her eyes snap open. 

As tears gather, Rey chokes on her own breath — the room is blue, and bright, but dark and hot, and her wrists and ankles are bound to a chair made not for sitting, and violence bleeds through the edges of her, and blends them with the edges of him. She remembers him, the creature in a mask, and though her heart begs her eyes to close once more, she focus on it instead, and the memories of the — _ day? hours? months?  _ — before now come back to her in a rush. 

She remembers the attic inside Maz’s castle in Takodana, the boy in the corridor, the mechanical breaths, and the snow. She remembers the weapon of myths, blood red and sharp, buzzing in her ears in the dream-like vision, and then in the green reality of the woods, until a monster in a mask turned all of it into black. Rey would cry if fear did not render her motionless. 

“Where am I?” Finally, she gathers the strength to ask. 

“Does the physical location really matter so much?” The distorted voice says, the lingering effects of boredom on its tone. “You’re my guest.” 

And, with a wave of its hand, the restraints are lifted. 

*

On hyperspace, a thousand and two miles away, the Millenium Falcon flies in the direction of the Starkiller Base. Finn sits on the back, heart on his throat and hands trembling --- there is no place he’d rather be other than far away from the prison of his childhood, a place of nightmares, but he knows it to be where he must be. 

There is no explanation for it, for the feeling which binds him and Rey, for the invisible thread that links them together, that brought them together, that makes him want to be nowhere but  _ together _ . 

She is a scavenger, feral child of sand, and he was a Stormtrooper, ripped away from childhood and made to obey and  _ yet - _ destiny, or whatever you may call it, whatever it may be, made them find one another. He can not discount that. He will not turn his back on her, not ever again. 

_ The only person I’d run into Starkiller base for is you, Rey, I will find you _ , he thinks, pressing his head against the panels of the Millenium Falcon. 

Finn does not know when it starts, and only notices as it is happening. He is drifting away, sleep and rest beckoning his name when he feels the shift. The world cries out in terror, but this time there is only one voice --  _ get out of my head _ , Rey says, wrath, sorrow and pain turned into one. He stumbles up, wondering perhaps if it was nothing but a bad dream, considering if maybe, just maybe, they have gotten there, if --- 

Out of the windows of the Millenium Falcon, blue lights still shine. 

*

Her eyes do not leave his. Be it pride or foolishness, she does not allow herself to look away from the unmasked man, even as tears run freely down her face from the effort to keep him out. 

It feels as though he has a scissor, unravelling, untangling and cutting down each thread of her mind, moving through it with ease, leaving her exposed. Everything she has ever hidden from herself left open on the cutting room floor, her comforts taken from her in mocking tonality. 

_ You have been so alone. I see the island.  _

Rey would not expect such cruelty from a face like his, but his eyes can not deceit — behind them, she sees a forest fire, and he is burning. 

And then, suddenly, in the midst of all her efforts, she is no longer in the room. The bright blue is no more, replaced by thick, dark trees, and her ankles are no longer bounded. Here, in the middle of a forest, she can walk again, though a part of her does not feel inclined to move at all, if only to leave this place. The heavy, weighted, hot air that she draws in, second by second, feels as though it could burn her throat to nothing but ashes --- and the smell, and the smoke, and the rotten aftertaste of decay lies on the tip of her tongue. 

In the corner of her eyes, something moves.

Her head snaps towards the shadow, a creature lurched, wrapped in it of itself under the branch of a tree, pressed against the grass where the root grows. Rey walks towards it, slow, hesitant steps, the sensation of burning reaching her insides as she gets closer, and closer, and closer. 

It is no shadow, she realizes, but a creature. Not creature but a man, not a man but a boy, grasping at grass to live up to the shadow that glooms over him. Rey would feel pity had she not recognized his face, the arch of his nose and the fall of his hair. 

_ Kylo Ren _ , she thinks, and realization dawns upon her:  _ it is my turn _ , she thinks.  _ I am in the insides of you. This is my domain now _ . 

The cruelty of him slip into the insides of her, and it is not in glee but vindication that she walks through the forest, blindly but not quite, drawn to that which can not be named. This place still burns, each time higher, hotter, hungrier than the second before, and still she walks, following blindly a mechanical breath that beckons her name, though no words are spoken. 

_ Come _ , it says.  _ See _ . It is curiosity that leads her closer still, a need for answers to the whys and the hows of this room and this man, or the desire to leave him open, just as she was, to undress him of his mask, cut him open and leave him to bleed? Is it neither? Is it  _ both _ ? 

Rey sees a burnt mask, that, though used by no one, seems to breathe commands towards her, or him, or — she touches it and everything gets black. 

“You — ” she spits, venom laced words and chin up in defiance. “You are  _ afraid _ .” 

She would laugh if she could, if anger did not take over every reaction of her body, voice, soul. “You’re afraid you’ll never be as strong as  _ Darth Vader _ .” 

For a moment, it is as if the forest fire dies. For a moment, as Kylo Ren’s hand pulls away from her face, in terror or disgust, or some strange kind of in between, in the land where one meets the other and together they become one. 

His movements are sharp, but carry none of the disdainful confidence they had before. 

The last thing Rey sees before being alone again is the aggressive movement of his hands, settling with silent violence handcuffs once again tight around her wrists.

———

There is a numb, wet and warm feeling on the back of her head, that weeps down her neck, too thick to be the snow melting, though she feels that, too. Her body shivers, disoriented and unsure, the blossoming bruises at the back of her breathing life of its own, singing of the ache that is to come. Rey ignores it, just as she ignores the cold (mind numbing, nerves numbing, freezing and numbing cold), ignores it just as she ignores the hot, thick scarlet that drips from her hands. She ignores it all. She has more important things to focus on, like the clashing and buzzing sound that comes from within the forest, and  _ Finn _ . 

She sees, from a distance, the glow of red-on-blue, blue-on-red, the sound of violence mixed in with the sound of nature, which she supposes is a kind of violence as well. Rey moves closer, watching from a distance as Kylo Ren takes the upper hand in the battle, as with nothing but a flick of his wrist his blood-red saber disarms Finn, and it is almost as though it is all over. She sees it with growing horror as the weapon moves against Finn’s back, and the finality of the blow that has the man fall to the ground. 

Tears gather at the corner of Rey’s eyes as she realizes the emptiness left within her by the blow. She can not feel the warmth -- the one she had grown accustomed to, the one that spread through her body even when Finn was not near, and even more so when he was. 

Here, in the middle of the snow-packed woods in the heart of Starkiller Base (the place he came for  _ her _ , all these risks taken for  _ her _ , she realizes in guilt plagued horror), Rey feels hate. 

In certain steps she moves closer to the face of a killer ( _ Han _ , and now  _ Finn _ , and so many others, oh  _ Force _ , so many others), watching with curiosity the spot where his gaze is locked --- she knows that weapon, has seen it before. 

_ It calls to you _ , Maz said. She doesn't know why, or even what she is doing, only that a voice rings in her head, and her hand stretches out, her fingers mirroring Kylo Ren’s, beckoning the lightsaber to come to her.  _ Come to me _ , she says in wordless words.  _ Come.  _

And as the lightsaber lands in her hand, her intent and pull stronger than his, bewilderment flows around her, and the force sings, wrapping itself around her with purpose. She does not run from it this time: the feelings that come with holding the saber do not frighten her, or perhaps her will is greater than her fear. Instead, the feelings, or the Force, or the universe chants, and a litany surrounds her:  _ welcome home _ .

“It  _ is _ you.” Ren murmurs, his face a mixture of shock and surety, as though an answer to a question he did not yet know to ask came, piece of the puzzle falling into place. 

It unsettles her: this knowledge he has of her that she does not have of herself, but it does not linger. Stronger than the discomfort is the rage, the hatred of the eyes and the face, of the blood saber that has taken and taken and taken from her. Rage consumes her, the edges of her vision lingering with dark fog, ever present around him, surrounding the forest and the self, own and his. 

The desire to destroy Kylo Ren is all that is of her as she ignites the saber, the buzzing of it to meet the buzzing of Ren’s as she charges forward, not thinking of a thing but  _ destruction _ .

Destruction, it seems, is the language of them, as she defends his blows with nothing but instinctual anger, attacking only when given a chance, with hard and angry blows against and around him. 

Trees have fallen down, and she feels the snow no more: all there is, here, is the hot, and the fire, exuding from him, lingering on every corner of the forest, through and around them. Where blue meets red it is as though an explosion occurred, and the forest sings with the buzzing of each clash, the vicious song of rampage as a lullaby at the end of the world, as the ground of Starkiller Base falls behind her, a precipice born. 

Had she taken another step back, she would have fallen. Now, with nothing but her lightsaber blade to defend her, she holds it into steady place. Kylo Ren looms threateningly, the red of his saber near her neck. 

One blow, or barely, and this will all have been for nothing, her head chopped off, her name as yet one of his victims, and ---

“You need a teacher” Kylo Ren says, malicious desperation lingering at his every word, “I can teach you the ways of the Force.” 

“The Force?” Rey asks, confusion coloring her features. And then, Maz’s voice rings in her ears once more.  _ I know the Force, it moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it.  _ She breathes, before closing her eyes, confusion slowly washing away to reveal nothing but peace, and purpose.  _ The light has always been there _ . And something else, too, something deeper, something hungry.

Rey has never felt anything like it before, not when she took the saber the first or the second time. It is as though time itself stops, as though the very matter of this world becomes one with her, lingering through her movements. She feels it flowing from him towards her, from every living creature throughout the galaxy, from the melting snow below her feet. She feels it buzzing through the lightsabers, and on the air she pulls in. Rey breathes again, her grip tightening around the lightsaber. When she opens her eyes, it is as though there were no pieces in the board at all, nothing but her. 

She takes the upperhand of the battle now, swinging violently at Kylo Ren. Now he is the one on the defensive, confused and somehow pleased. The Force sings, cheers, moves. Such are the violence of her attacks that he falls on this back, unbalanced by the sudden viciousness of her. 

Rey stalks around him, slowly, as a ripper-raptor waiting for its prey to give away the signs of weaknesses. Kylo reignites his saber, but before he can charge forward again, she swings at him once more, her saber moving from her head down, and all Ren can do is defend himself. 

She presses her blade against his, forcing the buzzing blood red to meet the white snow, melting it away at sight, she presses it down again, stronger, harder, until with another blow the saber swings away from him, falling on the ground. 

Here, defenseless, she looks at him, small and smaller still.  _ Pathetic _ . Adrenaline buzzes through her, hatred and fear and anguish all in one as she watches. One final blow, her blade slashing across his face, and he is on the ground again, the smell of burnt flesh now raging against the winter wind. 

Rey and Ren. Ren and red. Rey and rage. Red, and rage, and rage, and Rey. Anger flows through her, and the darkness of the woods creeps in, closer and closer still, and they whisper in her ears.  _ Do it _ , the forest says.  _ Kill him _ . The darkness beckons out her name, swirling around her and around him, his limp and fragile body on the ground, and all it would take would be one blow, one swift movement against his neck, and he’d be gone, and this would be over.  _ Kill him,  _ the forest sings.  _ So quick. So easy _ . 

She moves closer to him, and the wind and the snow hymn around her, the smell of decay surrounding all there is, the shadows around her growing stronger and more vibrant with each second. Darkness engulfs her, until she can see nothing but Ren, and the pathetic shape of him, fallen in the snow. Rey wants to laugh, and she would, had the pain he has caused her and all those she dared to love not choked it out her, violently as all else that surrounds the creature. Her grip tightens, and she can hit him, she knows, one final blow. Her arms lift, the blue of the saber shining against the darkness of the woods and the darkness of her, buzzing with the sound of a kill, and she burns, and burns, and ----.

Suddenly, it is not only Rey and Ren in the woods. 

Somewhere, breaking through the barrier of rage, the warmth she has come to know reaches in, and touches the very core of her. Somehow, it wraps itself around her hand, and matches the beating of her heart in its unfaltering light. The warmth shines through the darkness as though there was never anything at all.  _ So warm. So known _ . A sob breaks through, and suddenly Ren is nothing at all, and all there is is the warmth, so tight around her it feels closer to home than anything she has ever known. 

Rey shuts off her lightsaber, and runs towards Finn and the lights of the Millenium Falcon. 

———

“Have you washed up yet?” General Leia Organa walks into the room, looking at the girl with kindness and intent, and something else, too, like a piercing knowledge she has yet to know, the anticipation of ache or something better. 

The girl, she has been informed, has not left the spot near her friend’s bed ever since the surgical droids were done with him, spending every hour looking at him as though the intensity of her stare alone could heal up all of his wounds, the shallow and the deep, the known and the unknown, and perhaps heal her own, too. Leia knows that look all too well, recognizes the fierce determination of the gaze in her own self, and a smile settles on her lips, despite the grief deep set on her bones. 

“What?” Distraction still lingers on Rey’s gaze as she lifts her eyes from Finn to the General, blinking softly at the woman. She is exhausted, an ache in the marrow that she can not shake off — not that she has tried to. Sleep does not come to her, the memories of Starkiller Base, Kylo Ren and Han too fresh on her mind, playing as a holovid every time she shuts her eyes. 

“You still have blood on your face. I assume you have not been acquainted with our ‘freshers?” The question, spoken half harshly, comes accompanied by a smile, a slight upwards quirk of the lip as Leia walks towards the girl. “As a former princess, I can tell you that they are impressive for a military base.” 

Rey looks at the woman, who, though shorter than most, still stands taller than all of the men and women she commands, her grief hidden so deep on the insides of her most people would forget it was even there, as a glisten in her eye and a ache in the marrow of her. The silence stretches. 

Finally, Rey says “I can’t. I have to stay here.” She shakes her head, determination coming to her voice as she remembers why she was there in the first place. “I will not leave Finn. Not again.” 

“That is nonsense.” Leia says, and Rey only flinches when her hand lays on her shoulder, the kindness of the touch unknown to a desert-bred child. She can not put words into the feeling, and does not dare to try. “Finn will be here after you have cleaned yourself up. He might even appreciate it.”

“But — ”

“No buts, child. How long has it been since you cleaned yourself? How long has it been since you rested?” 

Had they been said by anyone else, the words might have been cruel. But, instead, General Leia carried softness to her speech and to her touch, and Rey could not find arguments to oppose her, or the knowing nature of her words, as though she could look into the inside of Rey and  _ know _ , as if she was there herself, standing and watching. 

Her tone, though filled with more understanding than Rey has ever heard in her life, did not linger with pity. It reminded her of Han, in a way. She can not help but wonder, deep somewhere, what happened to Kylo Ren. She does not speak of it. Instead, she mumbles a weakly  _ alright _ , and gets up from Finn’s side. The General squeezes her shoulder, softly, and smiles (and Rey wonders how can she after all of this weight, how can she —).

“Good choice.”

*

Rey stares at the image of her, reflected in the mirror and finds that it exists in the liminal spaces between recognition and barely-an-acquaintance, from the lines of her eyes to the arch of her nose and the curve of her mouth, the freckles outlining the skin overworn by the sun. Blood has dried on the top of her brow, its vivid scarlet red now a dull brown, and she could peel it off if she so wished. Instead, she touches it, softly, her brows furrowed and her lips trembling. 

The artificial light of the refresher reflects against the white of the walls, and the white of the sink, and the white of the floor. Rey has never seen anything so clean, and seemingly unworn, almost new, and suddenly her clothes — so worn, and dirty, and old — feel heavier than the junk of the whole of Jakku. She closes her eyes, and breathes. She breathes until her knuckles unclench from the porcelain of the sink, until the quivering of her lips is no more. She breathes until she can open her eyes again, and look at the white against white of the refresher. 

Rey starts with her hair. Well-used fingers unwrap the fine piece of leather that kept the first bun together, pulling it away as the first section of hair falls awkwardly, staying in shape where the dirt, oil and sweat meet the time worn. She runs her fingers through the strands of hair, pulling the second leather soon after, placing both of them neatly side by side on the sink (they cost her half a portion, she would not dare to lose them). 

When it is time for the third bun to come off, Rey finds more than sweat and dirt. There, mangled up with the strands of brown hair, is what remained of body-meets-tree, the dry dull blood that starts from the roots of her hair and clings to the skin of her neck, nape to base, flecks falling as she runs her fingers through it. 

It hurts, like a dull, everlasting feeling, rumbling underneath her skin. 

She unbuckles the belt, lightsaber and blaster untouched ever since she left the woods and the snow, and rests it all near the leather on the sink. The un-weight of it, so foreign to her body, makes her knee tremble, and with it comes the realization of weariness that lingers on the being of her.  _ The General was right _ , she thinks, accompanied by the unthought of  _ Han did say she always was.  _

Without the belt to keep it in place, the draped fabric comes off easily, worn out hands unknotting the small knots on each side of her before it falls off, beige meeting white. For a moment, she wonders what would happen if those were her bones, and she unknotted each and every one of them, quietly, endlessly, taking away the ever-state of tension that has settled deep within her, on the marrow of the marrow of her bones, like a scar of the claws of the desert. Would she fall, like the drapings, the bones of her dirty and worn and beige against the white of the floor? Rey takes off her boots, sand still inside of them, and stretches her toes.

She unwraps the armbands, the skin underneath already pinkish from the strain, and all that is left are the shirt and pants, which she removes expertly, too, leaving behind only the sight of her naked body, her reflection on the mirror staring back at her. 

Here, underneath her right breast, on the curve of her spine, is a blooming blossoming bruise, pink-red turning into purple-blue, and only her heartbeat underneath. Rey traces the scar on her hip, and the ones on her arm, inspecting and observing for the first time without the tick of the clock as the portions go, one by one, and wonders if everyone’s body looks like this, too, violence embroidered against skin. 

When Rey finally showers, she scrubs herself raw, and stays underneath the water until she can’t anymore, her skin red and tender from the heat. She brushes her wet hair, and keeps it as so --- she is not used to water lasting so long against her skin, and decides that she rather enjoys it, the feeling of cold wetness dripping down her back, the whispers of touch against flesh.

A fresh pair of clothes lay on the bed, the pants too big and the shirt too small, and though Rey tries to, she can not deny the beckoning of a comfortable bed, and pillow, and her tired bones cry. 

Somewhere in Yavin 4, General Leia Organa keeps the nightmares away from a girl that sleeps with her hair wet. In her own dreams, she sees a girl with blue eyes, riding home on dragonback. 

*

In three days time, Rey has become more acquainted to the facilities. She spends more of her days at the medical bay, watching with curious eyes as the droids care for all of those injured at the Battle of Starkiller Base — it boils at the pit of her stomach, the realization of all lives hurt, lost and impacted by the evil unleashed by Kylo Ren, and at times she has to keep her nails from digging into flesh, or keep them there, to keep the Force from acting in its own accord. More than once now Rey has sent a bacta patch flying across the room, only to be kicked out by expressionlessly angry droids. 

It has also become harder to keep others out — their edges spill into the edges of her, blending and blurring one with the other, and soon enough she is a beacon for all of their happiness, anguish, anger and doubts, their loves and their losses, all of them bubbling on the insides of her, until she can not tell anything apart. She does not know what is hers and what is the others’, only that it is there and it  _ hurts _ , or throbs, like a headache you can not get rid of no matter how hard you try. 

Still, she tries.

Rey tries to blend in, to spend times at the cafeteria, where there is so much food — which she pockets and saves underneath her bed, hidden from prying hands and kept safe when in need — and everyone is so  _ nice _ . They smile, and talk, and congratulate her. They tell her they heard so much about her from, unsurprisingly, Chewbacca, and they are so thrilled to have her here, at the heart of the resistance. 

She feels so welcomed, and safe, and warm, and still, when surrounded by others, there is nothing but a buzzing sensation of each and every soul gathered on the insides of her, picking and choosing and throwing all they are into all she is. 

And so Rey keeps to herself, at the medical bay or her bunker, or the quiet spot near the river, where the sun shines against the water and green meets blue in perfect harmony. It is here, on the fifth day, surrounded by the sounds of nature and the chirping of birds, that she decides to talk to General Organa. 

It is as though a thread guides her, pulling her towards the feeling of peace and quiet. Rey does not know where she is going, though her legs move without hesitance through the path of the unknown. A part of her thinks she might hear it, like a voice calling out each step, dictating the left and the right, through the bunkers and the cafeteria, into the war-rooms and through the blur of hopeful and passionate faces.  _ Here _ , it says.  _ Here, Rey. _

When she walks into the room, all eyes turn to her, some in kindness, some in suspicion, some hopeful. She recognizes Poe Dameron, the pilot Finn had rescued and who almost as often as herself would visit Finn. 

Here, when his eyes meet hers, they are plagued with unsettledness, and a lingering suspicion that makes Rey look away. Finn rescued him from the First Order, she knows, and — could Kylo had done the same to him as he did to her? Could Kylo Ren had cut him open as he — Rey decides not to think of it, and keep the bile from rising to her throat. 

“Rey! Come in, we were just talking about you.” Says one of the commanders, though she can not put a name to the face of the trandoshan, the dulled green of his scales or the tone of his voice. From him, there is a mixture of trust, and hope, and want, as though he expects something from her. 

“Rey, dear girl,” says General Leia, sending a sharp look in the direction of the commander, as if he said what ought to remain unspoken, and she was unpleased. When she turns her gaze to Rey, though, she is met with kindness. “What is it?”

“I was wondering if I could speak to you, General.” Rey glances at the faces around her, known and unknown, unsure whether to continue. She would rather not open herself up with these many curious ears, too many to gather up all of her vulnerabilities, too many to use it against her, too many to —  _ You are not in Jakku anymore, girl.  _ Rey opens her mouth, but is interrupted before she can say a thing.

As though the General could sense her unease, Leia raises her hand, silencing Rey and, with a flick of the wrist, dismisses the others. “We meet again in some other time,” she says, nodding with finality, and, just like that, they are gone, and in the war room, surrounded by maps and plans and droids, stand only Leia and Rey, Rey and Leia. As they leave, Rey feels the weight from the air lift, the ringing of them fading from her, and finds nothing but peace and quiet from where General Leia stands, looking at her as though she  _ knows _ . She does not allow the silence to stretch. “Speak.” 

“You are like your brother, aren’t you? Like —” Rey weights the words out against her tongue, suddenly acutely aware of what these two little words, so simple, so  _ quick _ , carry hidden in between them, the dangers of opening up wounds that have not even had the chance to heal yet. She furrows her brows, and speaks anyway. “Like  _ Kylo _ .” 

Leia does not stumble, or flinch. One less in tune with the Force may even think that she experienced no emotion at all upon hearing the taken mantle of the murderer of her husband, of the child she carried and nurtured within her for months. Rey is not one of those people, but if she blinked for a second longer she would find herself in such a category: the barriers of Leia Organa are placed high, and higher still, but around them what is normally welcoming becomes cold, as if stricken by that which can not yet be named, and must instead be let out for the Force to devour. Leia does not stumble, or flinch. Instead, she points at the chair next to her own, and looks at Rey with all too knowing eyes.

“I am like both of them in many ways, and unlike them in even more. You’ll have to be more specific.” Leia’s tone is one of matter-of-factness, not annoyed, but knowledgeable, as though she knows where to push, where to probe. 

“I — I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t have the words.” Rey says, and her confession is given in half-shame. 

In the desert, surrounded by the orange-sand of Jakku, she had never once struggled with languages, basic or otherwise. She spoke high, and proud, and often helping other scavengers, and Unkar Plutt himself, with visitors not of that land. And yet, still, to explain that which hunts her, she is at a loss. Tentatively, she begins to speak. 

“Maz Kanata told me in Takodana about a light that had always lived inside of me, and -- at Starkiller Base, Kylo Ren spoke of the Force, and of a teacher. I do not know of any of those, light or Force, but — ” She closes her eyes, and all of the exasperation and fear that have been keeping a rope tight around her throat are released out to the world in the shape words. 

“I can feel  _ everything _ . From  _ everyone _ , except you. I need it to stop. I can’t do any of this if it does not  _ stop _ .” 

Leia studies the girl, quietly, discreetly, observing the curve of her nose and the arch of her cheeks, the hair that is so similar and yet so far, the  _ eyes _ \--- but above all, she studies the quiet desperation, the hidden (poorly so, one may add) fear of all which is unknown.

It is in soothing words that she speaks, “I can try to help you, Rey, but it is not me who is meant to teach you.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“I believe — the Force is a tricky thing to understand, but sometimes it makes things clear. There is a reason you are here now. There is a reason you brought us the map.” Leia speaks with the confidence of one who has repeated the same words a thousand times, who carries an unshakable faith in that which is spoken, her hands moving slowly in the air as she explains the unexplainable. “You — Rey,  _ you _ are the key to my brother. You are meant to train under  _ him _ , not me.”

Rey’s brows furrow, confusion sparking across her features. She thinks of the vision, of the boy facing a man-machine in a hallway. She thinks of a temple burning, and the voice of a wise man calling out her name. She thinks of Kylo Ren.  _ You need a teacher _ . Her nails scratch against her palm, an old habit picked up in Jakku, but there is no sand or dirt to be taken off her skin. 

In the safety of Yavin 4, she is clean as new, and in her palms is only the redness, an afterthought of contact. She shakes her head. 

“But—  _ no _ , I am here. I have helped you find him, I brought the map. Why can’t someone else go?  _ Why can’t you?”  _

If Leia, the General of the Resistance, finds Rey’s answer to display petulance or disrespect she does not show it so. Instead, she tilts her head, allowing Rey’s words to fill the air, searching for the best way to argument against them without upsetting her, a line she has long learned is better to thread with care (she does not think of Ben, or the lopsided grin of Han Solo she often saw on his lips. She thinks of nothing at all). 

“Artoo did not wake up to my presence. He did not choose to show the map to me. For whatever reason, he chose  _ you _ . The Force chose  _ you _ , Rey. It willed it so.” 

Rey groans, shaking her head as frustration builds up on the insides of her. Though she can not tell at what, or who, she knows it better than she knows herself: the wrath, boiling up on the innermost of her intestines, lingering with the strength and heat of the sun-god, and she shakes her head vehemently. There is terror, inside of her, too, at the thought of having no control, at the thought of being exhumed as a corpse, at the thought of a choicelessness that she can not dictate. 

“I didn’t ask for it. I  _ don’t _ want it. There is a mistake, there has to be —” Perhaps, in these words, desperation lingers. 

Leia has long dealt with such brashness, and it brings a ghost of a smile to her lips. _ I see it now, Han.  _ She folds her hands on her lap, and tilts her head to the side. “How did my father’s saber end up in your hands?” 

“It — I — It called to me.”  _ And it was terrifying,  _ she wants to say but does not dare to.  _ It showed he so much horror and so much pain I swore not to touch it again, and no matter how much it felt like home to wield its power I can not —.  _ She shakes her head, head held high in defiance and a false sense of dignity. “But I don’t  _ care _ . I  _ don’t _ want it.”

Leia’s shoulders roll upwards, a shrug as her hand unfolds, a slight movement of it in the air. It is not cruelty, nor annoyance, that colors the face of the general, but amusement. There is a softness to the edges of her, a mixture of exasperation and fondness that reaches out to wrap itself around Rey. It is not warm, nor cold, but familiar, much like the woman itself seems to be. 

“Do you know what I want, Rey? I want to be sunbathing on the beaches of Naboo, eating peaches from the fields of Ithor, drinking dasani at the upskirts of Coruscant, and yet I am here, just as you are. All is as the Force wills it, I have told you so.” 

Still, Rey fights, hands grasping at the loose straws of choice, the faint possibility of something else. It is the mind fighting to accept that which the heart already knows, pulling and tugging on loose threads with desperation, and the constant movement of the head, and the furrowing of the brows. “I can leave. I can run. I can — take a ship and get away, and —”

“Alright, I’ll bite. Where do you plan on going, Rey of Jakku, with nothing to your name, no credits, no ship? Back to Jakku?” The question lingers in the air, Leia looking at Rey with empathy in her eyes, a kindness stripped of pity delivered in harsh words. 

Rey does not know how she does it, to speak what cuts but to heal instead of wound. “Those scavengers will denounce you within the second in exchange for favors from the First Order, and you know it. Run towards or away, you will end up with my brother, that is how all of this works.”

Silence settles, and stretches, any and all argument robbed from Rey’s tongue. Here, with no words to be said, the Force, too, stretches between them, Leia’s comfort settling in between Rey’s fingers, wrapping itself around her shoulders, as the girl accepts what she already knew, somewhere deep within the marrow of her bone. 

Rey stretches her fingers, and closes her hands into fists, repeating the movement again and again and again, until she closes her eyes.

And then: a quiet realization. “What about Finn? I can’t leave him.”  _ He is all I have _ , she wants to say.  _ No one has come back for me. No one has looked at me the way he did.  _

Leia’s gaze shifts, amused smile to warm, as though, finally, something has clicked, a thread stitched, padding under the great blanket of mystery that is Rey-of-Jakku, scavenger to whom the saber of her-brother-and-their-father-before-him called.  _ You care about him as you care about anything else _ . Fiercely as all else. There is a danger in the way Rey feels all so deeply, and perhaps Leia would be more worried was she not nostalgic. She recalls being nineteen, fighting against something much bigger than she could have ever known, and in love with a boy. 

“He is safer here, with the proper medical care. Listen to me, Rey. You will come back, with Luke by your side. And if by then Finn is treated, then, sure, you two may leave. But I do not believe you can step away from this fight. And I think you know that, too. Han knew it.” Leia has seen the fire in her eyes before, reflected in the eyes of those who mattered most to her. This girl has never seen a fight she could turn her back to.

There is something about the sound of Han’s name in the General’s voice that makes Rey stop, her breath caught in her throat, and a dull ache as a knife to it, too. She has never known such kinship before, nor received such kindness from strangers, or been offered so much in such a short amount of time. He felt, much like Leia, familiar, like a dream-memory from a time before time itself, so soothing to her coarse skin. 

“Han told you about me?” She asks, eagerness and yearning doused in her lips. 

“Yes, quite a bit, actually. He wasn’t much of a talker except when he was.” Leia smiles as she speaks, head tilted to the side and a gleam upon her eyes as she does so. She has not spoken his name in days, not allowed herself to open the wound of his loss and clean it, alcohol, bacta and finally stitch it closed, and the thought of the memory of easier days bring ease to her. “Han always wanted a little girl, you know. He was very jealous of Luke, actually, when — what I am trying to say is that he was fond of you.” 

She thinks of the laughter of a little girl with blue eyes, unruly as she is disobedient, kind beyond her years. She thinks of loss, again, and what it means to be a child of a dragon. “Whatever you two went through together, it made an impact. He knew you were special, and so do I. It is not a simple task to be trusted with, you know. He may be the Jedi legend  _ Luke Skywalker _ to the world, but he is my brother first.”

It is hard for any creature to wrap their heads around the humanity of legends, and their failings, too, as well as their hearts. Mythology takes, and takes, and takes. 

“But he is  _ Luke Skywalker,  _ why — why would he leave?” 

“That, my dear, you will have to ask him yourself. He has kept the walls to himself very high up for a long time now.” 

“And if I can’t bring him back? What do we do then?” In Rey’s words, the seeds of self-doubt grow, in her voice not desperation but faithlessness in the self.  _ How can you ask a desert child to follow the steps of a Jedi Master?  _

“We hope.” 

———

On the orange-sand of Jakku, sheltered within the metal-walls of a fallen imperial AT-AT walker (hellhound two model, combat class, equipped with terrain sensors, twenty-five LX-4 proton mines, and E-11 blaster rifles, retired since 5BBY, now rotting and rusting away on the sands of a graveyard, and all of its valuable pieces dismounted and sold for rations), Rey dreamt. Her body curled around the self as a child in the womb, her hands, fingers against fingers, soothed the ache of loneliness; a touch to the untouched. Though the body changed, the hips and the waist and the legs and the breasts, the dreaming remained.

Rey was thirteen the first time she dreamt of the island. She did not have a name for it, and instead called it a rock upon the ocean, but there was rarely a need to name the unspoken, that which lived needed only images, or less, to be remembered. 

It started with the smell, so unlike the sickly dryness of Jakku that it would burn, almost, were it not so soft. It was the freshness of salt, met with the humidity of the ocean that turned sand into stone, and sand into green, and sand into water. Soon, she’d be standing where she had never stood before, though her heart feel as though it had, so comforted by the sound of waves against shore, waves against rock, waves against waves that her heart ached with all that is not here. 

In the dream, that always came when she was the loneliest, Rey did nothing at all. She sat against the greenery, and watched the ocean until the void was no more, and she was held in the arms of a figure that was not there at all, and was, in all ways that it wasn’t. 

And here, now, standing in the rock covered in green, that stands upon the water, that smells like salt and freshness, Rey begins to understand what Leia meant. 

She knows Ahch-To, even though she has never been here before. She knows the stone path she follows, despite only ever seeing it in dreams. She does not need the Force, not here --- her heart guides her from the unmemories of warmth (here’s what she is yet to find out: the Force is everywhere, especially here, and it circles around her, guiding her forward. Her heart beats as one with it, as though the Force itself has been waiting for this moment).

Upon the cliff, on the furthest edge of the island, a figure cloaked in light grey faces the horizon. 

Rey does not know what does it: is it the strength of her gaze or the heartbeat of the Force, humming between them, or from her to him, that makes Luke Skywalker turn around? Here, faced with the master of the Jedi, last of the old and first of the new, she falls silent, lips parted and hands trembling. She watches as he reaches for the hood of his robes, as he removes them, as his eyes pierce through her, the silent humming of heartbreak on them, the shattered countenance of a man who once stood tall, and taller still. 

Here is what she does not notice: metal against flesh, and the yearning in the eyes of a man seeing what he long thought to be lost. 

How long do they stand near the cliff on the green on the rock upon the ocean, looking at one another, until her hands reach towards the bag, and wrap around the lightsaber was his, and  _ his father before him _ . Rey stretches out her hand, holding out the saber in a silent offer, or, rather, a plea, for the galaxy, or herself. 

The Force moves through her, and it searches for something, reaching out for him. It finds nothing. She watches with intent as his hand reaches out, as his fingers wrap around the lightsaber with intent, as she watches the weapon with nostalgia, or worse. It is not that. There is fondness in his look, but terror, too, and an ache too deep to be named. In the silence between them, Rey begins to understand what silence is: absence, the lack of. 

Rey had wished for, and begged, for silence in Yavin 4. She wanted nothing more than to be cut off, entirely, fully, completely, from all of the souls in the heart of the Resistance. She wanted to be alone, to be at peace, to not hear the heartbreak and not feel the anguish and fear of all those fighting. She longed for it then, and in Jakku, too, and yet --

When Rey reaches out for Luke Skywalker, she finds out that there is nothing, only the absence of what had once been, or what should be, as though a cord that existed between them has been cut, or, rather, as though half of it has been burned off, and all that is left is the carcass of her, and she lacks. Silence is the absence of sound, yes, and in the Ahch-To silence is the absence of him. 

She stands alone in the Force. 

Luke Skywalker moves closer to her, though she would not know it had her eyes not been glued on him from the moment she got there. His fingers (do you notice how they tremble?) wrap tightly around the saber, as though they are the only thing keeping him standing, and he takes a breath, and two, and three. He looks as one of the vases in Jakku, shattered and pieced together with its pieces in the wrong places, sharp edges facing inwards and outwards an often nowhere at all. He places the saber back on her hands.

“I did not expect to see you here, Rey.” Luke says, and, just like that, he is gone, and Rey stands alone within the stones of Ahch-To.

————

Rey presses her head against the cold, humid stone of Ahch-To, and closes her eyes. 

When she opens her eyes, she is standing in the desert. She knows this place, has stood against the orange sand for a thousand days, and a thousand more, until the days blended into one another and were nothing more than a scratch in the wall. She has been here before, has hidden inside a fallen AT-AT until the sandstorm was no more, has slept starvation away, and dreamed of a home and blue eyes. She has been here before. Except — the sand is not orange, but yellow, and the sky is not blue, but purple, and on the skies it is not the god-sun, eater of worlds, that shines, but two, twin suns that look at her as though they were eyes, that dig into her as if they know who she is. Behind them is not a vastitude of sand, but mountains, red and brown and black. 

From a distance, she hears the ruffling of wings, or something of the sort (such a noise has never been heard before, no, not by her), but Rey thinks nothing of it, her gaze too focused on the boy with sand-like hair that stands near her, no more than 19, looking at the horizon with longing. She has never seen that man-boy before in her life, but she can not look away, can not stop herself from walking towards him, his bright blue eyes matching her own, and she stretches her arms to touch, to feel, to ask, mouth opening in pleading as an odd sort of familiarity sets in between her bones, and her mouth opens — but the yearning of her touch turns him into sand, yellow grains slipping through her fingers.

Rey looks at the suns once more, and the mountains are now gone, sky stretching, pink and purple and red turned into one. The sound is closer now, and her attention can now be fixed upon the creature. At a distance, it looks as though they are the mountains themselves, red and brown and black, with yellow embers glued at the beginning of it, the glow of the sun glistening against the skin of it. But mountains do not fly, and mountains - embers do not move. No, no, this is something else entirely.

The creature moves, its head heavy against the wind, its wings flapping in perfect synchrony and it flies, closer to her, and closer still. Its body is marked with scales, red and black and brown, all of it dark, though lightness breathes through the being of him. Those are no embers, she realizes in fear and fascination, but eyes. Eyes so yellow she has never seen such a thing before, similar to a snake, similar to the god-sun, similar to the suns that set on the skies of this desert that is not Jakku. It frightens her so that Rey can not look away.

“Remember” the creature breathes, his air hot, as though if he so wished he could set fire to it all. “Remember, Rey.” 

Startled, Rey takes several steps back, and considers running from the creature she has never even heard of before but knows her name, and she knows its eyes, like a dream a child had once, holding the fragments of a flower and the fabric of a doll. But she can not run, her feet refusing to answer to her commands, her eyes fascinated by the creature’s eyes, yellow like a snake or a cat or — or — .

“Remember, Rey.  _ Remember who you are _ .” 

And it breathes out in her, setting the world on fire. 

Rey wakes up, head pressed up against the cold, wet stone of Ahch-To, and opens her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm an incredibly slow writer so i can not begin to tell you when this will be completed, BUT i have come further than i ever thought i would with this fic in particular, so, fingers crossed. thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> i would also like to thank amanda & yuri for all of the support in the weeks of planning, writing, hating and over-thinking this. i'd be lost without you two.
> 
> you can find me @binarysunseit on tumblr or @vadereys on twitter. 
> 
> constructive criticism is always welcomed.


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